FLOATING DOCK ANALYSIS SUBJECT TO DYNAMIC WAVE LOADS USING COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

Abstract

Floating dock systems are widely used in marine and waterfront facilities. Environmental loading and movements applied on these systems can be challenging to predict due to the complex interaction between structures and fluids under dynamic wave loads. Design of floating dock systems requires analysis of wave induced forces, relative movements of the dock, effects of connections, and subsequent loads and deflections in piles or mooring line anchors. Supporting structures such as piles or mooring lines can have significant impacts on load distribution within a floating dock system and shall be analyzed carefully during design. Recent advances in computer hardware and multi-physics computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technology have permitted transient dynamic wave analysis of entire floating dock system, to explicitly consider fluid-structure interaction in the analysis and design of floating dock systems. In this study, a CFD technology is applied to investigate the dynamic system characteristics of a floating dock system supported by both piles and mooring lines. CFD analysis is based on software package FLOW-3D® Hydro. Floating dock, piles, and mooring lines are modeled, and analysis results are presented. It is shown to be useful for analyzing floating docks which are typically too complex to accurately evaluate using empirical methods.